Really Real
by everyone'ssister
Summary: Tag for KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON, 12.01 "Are you really...real?"
1. Part 1 Dean

REALLY REAL

Tag for KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON, 12.01

Dean Winchester actually existed, his life seemed a novelty to anyone else. But Dean was Dean. He lived every half-second, every whole second, every minute, hour, day, month, year, decade. With the "unfortunate" addition of his forty years in hell Dean had lived seventy-eight years.

He has lived the good, the bad, the sweet, the bitter. He's felt every emotion; happiness—all encompassing misery. He's felt every wound, he has waited and watched each and every one heal and slowly disappear, or, leave a scar as an unwanted reminder.

He has been a child, a teenager, a young adult, a discontented miserable person. He's figuring out what his happiness is. He and Sam are making a good home in the bunker. His happiness grows all the time, slowly Dean is changing from that miserable person and into Sam's brother, hunter, Cas' dearest friend...'a good man crying to be heard.'

And Dean is learning to let that man out.

Seventy-eight is a long time to be alive. A lot of things change, he hardly recognizes the past or present Dean as himself. But something's never change. Dean has always been his mother's son. Every month, often several times, he sees her, he dreams of her.

It's not like the dream of his father, and himself, and Sam driving the impala. That dream is ethereal and heaven-like; Dean knows it isn't his reality, he knows the dream is a treat in and of itself and he goes on with life grateful for that little glimpse of a happiness that just barely slipped through his fingertips. This dream, of the long absent mother is something so different; real, tangible.

It's always the same. Just before him, she wavers in the light. So life like, smiling a little. Calm and steadfastness radiating from her just like Dean remembers. He's always uncertain, hand trembling towards the coveted form...he never quite reaches her.

In the dream a cool breeze drifts over his face, her hair catches it, the golden strands lifting in the stirring air...his fingers are so close, he can almost, always only almost, skim the pads of his appendages over the silky material covering her.

Then everything changes. He wakes. The same question on his lips, every time the same question left hoarse in the empty room or unspoken in his mouth. His body springs from the mattress, eyes staring wide into darkness, hand trembling, outstretched, still searching for what he lost seventy-four long years ago.

And he already knows the answer to the foolish question.

"Are you really real?"

No.

Never.

Seventy-four long, long...oh so long years the question is the same, the answer is the same.

The crushing reality, and cold loneliness is always the same. Didn't change from four to eight, didn't change from ten to twenty. Would never change.

You don't outgrow pain.

First rule to growing up Dean Winchester.

He always wonders what her answer would be if the dream didn't end. Would she lie to him so he has a little comfort? Would she be cold and blaming, 'why didn't you save me?' (Got to love that Dean Winchester guilt.) But most of all he dreams of her touch.

He remembers from so long ago when her hand would ghost through his hair, soft, thin fingers drift down his cheek. And he knows if he didn't wake that is how the dream would end. He closes his eyes, can almost feel the object of his deepest desire...what he needs.

He opens his eyes, she's gone, her dreamy presence and touch is gone...but the peace that fills him every time is worth the pain of that bitter disappointment. He can go on now...he can go on for her, he can fight her fight, he can be strong until the next dream.

It doesn't feel like a dream when he's wandering through the woods after Chuck and Amara leave. Dean just wants home to Sammy and Cas. Celebrate all of their 'aliveness' drink a few beers over pizza, send himself off to bed with a tall shot of their finest whiskey and sleep for a month.

Knows it's going to take ages to soothe Sam's trauma, doesn't know how his brother did it...let him go. Because he knows just how impossible it was for him. He smiles thinking of nights spent watching bad TV and making fun of it. He and Sam are definitely in line for vacation and he thinks now that they've averted the apocalypse AGAIN they're going to jump ahead and just take what's theirs.

He'll buy Sam as many books as he wants to read on the beach, even if they are lore. Just as long as it's Sammy and Dean on the beach together. He himself will be bathing in the sun, sleeping in it's warmth, but hey, Sam could keep guard if he wanted.

He reaches for his phone wanting to relieve his brother's heavy heart. Wants to tell him of his plans, hear that all-dimples smile over the phone. Wants to hear that voice say 'Dean' in a that hushed over husky tone Sam can't control when he's emotional. Wants to pick fun at him for all his chick flick 'iness'.

But he can't find reception, he's lost, and then he hears an eerily familiar voice that wraps him up warm and safe inside.

When had this become a dream? He thinks.

He breaks through the trees and there she stands. Just like the dream. Night wind playing in the beautiful blond curls, eyes bluer than his wildest dreams. This vivid dream, gets him ever time. He feels his throat growing tight as he draws near her.

Hand reaches out, shaking to touch her. She looks unsure, her eyes soft as ever though.

The question. It's inevitable, he can't even stop it tumbling from his lips.

"Are you, really...real?"

And he braces himself to wake, to be thrust into chilled reality again. But he doesn't wake. Instead the breeze floats over them again and then she touches him.

She touches him.

And he knows his going to wake up now, because her hand is warm where he painfully twists his own. He doesn't care, her foot is warm and strong pressing in the back of his neck. This too good to be true he has never felt her, never ever felt her in the dreams.

And she speaks.

She speaks, same voice as ever, a littler harder as she demands answers to her questions, but still rolling over Dean in warm waves of happiness. His mouth spills words out, but he just stares at her in disbelief. He rises back to his feet and she's there in front of him. So life like, so perfect.

And then she tilts that beloved head to the side and she touches him hesitantly. He's waiting to wake up, but when he doesn't he's holding his breath for her to ghost fingers through his hair and down his cheek. But instead arms that his grown form have never felt are wrapped around him. His cheek is pressed against hers, so soft, so warm.

Eyes opened wide...he's awake. He doesn't close them in fear it will break the spell. She's warm and alive and soft against him. She's on her tiptoes leaning into him, honest to God, Dean Winchester's Mom is holding him. Or more like he's holding her.

"Hey mom."

She's really real.

•••

THANK TOU SO MUCH FOR READING!

Review? ;)

let me know whose looking foward to my tags this season!? Whether I do them or not is up to how many of u guys want to read them. So let me kno in the comments!


	2. Part 2 Mary

This is for Cassandra96 who requested a second part with Dean filling Mary in on what has happened to he and Sam over the years. "I hope this is something like you wanted. Thanks for the review, it means a ton!"

...

Part 2.

She is alive again. Her sweet, green-eyed baby boy is one of the scariest, devilishly handsome men she's ever met. The world is transformed from the America she knew thirty-three years ago. She stumbles into a Men of Letters World Wall ll bunker that her son calls home.

Dean's face is handsome with its sharp lines and the sparkling green eyes she had prayed he would keep when he was growing up. But he is far from the little boy she knew, far from even the hunters she knew. He is all mystery. Strong. Dangerous. The silent seething anger, she feels coming off of him is somewhat awe-inspiring.

He's seemingly annoyed by a friend's embrace but smiling contentedly by the end. He keeps cool while the angel, Castiel, does as he wants with a man who participated in Sam's demise. In fact Mary finds the silence endearing and reflective of Dean's personality. His quiet authority fills the room and demands everyone's attention who comes into contact with it.

But as soon as Sam is threatened in earnest his darker, dangerous side sends chills up and down her spine. His words are measured and hushed, the threat made so much more terrifying by his gravelly, even tones.

When the woman (no doubt shaking in her boots) hangs up, she watches the lines of his shoulders rise and fall in a few breaths, watches the tension grow taunt to an unbelievable point. And then there is a shattering noise that fills the quiet of the room.

Dean turns slowly towards them. The look of pure rage on his face is enough to make her want to take a step back. The broken phone trembles in his clenched fists. The remnants are thrown resoundingly to the floor at the feet of the vet.

"Better be glad I don't have the time to tear YOU apart." He hisses to the shaking man, teeth bared like a half crazy animal.

The trio race to John's car and boy, can Dean drive or what? If they weren't trying to save Sam's life, Mary would have been having the time of her life. She's never seen cold, determined anger like Dean's. It's exhilarating and fills her with a quiet pride; this is her boy.

This amazing human being is her son.

Then there is a hard impact and everything goes dark.

...

She wakes up to the sound of panted breaths, and gasped, breathless groans. She's laying head tilted against the back of the seat, her head hurts like there's church bells inside. She pulls herself upright, and catches sight of Castiel and Dean he asphalt, her boy dragging himself forward in hopes to get to his feet again.

There's a woman standing all in black, her voice and accent is obnoxious to the point Mary rolls her eyes. Her mothering instincts has her zoning into the gun pointed at her boy's head. She freezes.

She'd sworn she'd never take another life, not even a supernatural one. But Dean is there, leaning awkwardly against the car's wheel, bruised and bleeding hand wrapped protectively around his stomach. Blood, he's bleeding, his flesh is torn oozing out his life...he's hurting. He's really real.

She stumbles from the impala and grabs the funny looking silver blade Castiel had armed himself with. Dean is squinting in the sunlight, those green beauties reflecting in the sunlight even in this life altering moment. Mary detachedly wonders how the woman is even still standing in their presence.

How could anyone hurt Dean? Her Dean.

He's really real. And currently that bitch is pointing a gun at him. She can do this. She's wept, and prayed for another chance and here it is. A chance to be there for him...to be his mom. She braces herself.

The blade seems to inserts itself into the woman's back as easy as a hot knife through butter. She gasps as the body slips from the blade and to the ground. Dean seems a little shocked too, like he expected her to keep her promise too.

"Thanks mom."

And yeah, no problem. Because Dean is her son, and there's nothing she wouldn't do for him.

The cleanup is quick. She's feels nauseous with the way Dean and Cas lift the corpse between them and position it in the car. She sits in the familiar, safe confines of John's car, looking at her hands. The same hands she had tried to clean, the same hands she had looked at in heaven and regretted every splash of condemning blood.

She knows how she feels, how about her poor, innocent boy's? They weren't supposed to be raised like this. They were supposed to be normal, beautiful...safe kids. She's knows the life, she's knows there was no way Dean reached his sixteenth birthday without slaughtering some creature in the shadows of the night.

He leans down in front of her. He's comforting her. Her son. And it's then that she realizes he's been in this life longer than she has, he isn't phased by taking a life in order to get to Sam.

How many times have you been through this?

It's the question she can't quite get out. But she does have to express her regret. Her sorrow, this wasn't what she wanted for them

"This is our life."

It's then that she knows there's no going back. For her boys, for her. Hunting makes Dean and Sam happy. Maybe that was terribly wrong, maybe they figured out something all the other hunters never did. Maybe it was each other, maybe for one time in the world's entire existence Dean and Sam had found something right. They kept each other sane, not killers...just hunters.

Maybe.

Mary wasn't going anywhere though. She was in this now. She wasn't leaving their sides ever again. In the impala she climbs in the back, needs some space. Dean and Sam weren't going to leave hunting. Not even for her.

She had heard the underlying determination in Dean's voice. He was prepping her for that blow if she didn't take his little hint. She knew ho where son loved her. Had heard all his lonely whisperings, his cries at night, the pleas for something different. She should be happy for him now that she finds he's reconciled himself to his life. Enjoys it even.

She stays quiet until they're back at the bunker. She sits down on one of the steps, hands clasped between her hands. Dean joins her, knows they need some time. He has to stop and face the music, knows she has to know more than just 'this is their life' and 'dad raised us like this' telling her about himself is going to be one of the hardest things he's ever done.

She watches him stretch his long, slightly bowed legs out in front of them. Listens to the way his muscles pop, the way he positions himself so it hurts less without even thinking about it. Catches sight of scars, whispers of things that she failed to save him from.

He may be big and bad now, but once Dean was her baby, once he was the only thing that mattered to her. Once he was the reason she made a deal with a demon...so her sweet baby would have a father.

"How old were you on your first hunt?" She asks slowly.

"Mom," he starts, his hand going to scratch the back of his neck. "Don't do this to yourself, you couldn't help it..."

"Dean," she stops him. Head bending to meet his gaze, "You," shame and regret fills her so potently, "You know about the deal?"

He blinks in surprise, but nods.

"Then you know that this is on me." Her voice cracks, but she stays strong, looking him in the eye.

If there is anything Dean understands it's guilt. He can't tell her no, because he would want the same. He would what to know everything, even though every fact would feel like a knife murdering him.

"I was ten," he says, voice husky. He looks down to hide from his mother's disappointed, disgusted look.

Instead he just feels her hand slip into his, he squeezes it. His heart so full it feels as if it's breaking. He looks back to her a bittersweet smile on his face.

"It was just your standard salt n'burn. Nice cemetery though."

There is silence for a few moments and then Mary breaks the silence by laughing. Dean follows, wiping his eyes after a moment.

"I know we're so screwed up." He says softly.

She nods knowing that feeling, knows how to feel so abhorred with one's self but still want to go on. She got out, her boys didn't but they hadn't lost sight of normality. Something else she had never seen before.

"We both nearly got out, you know?" He says again, a faraway look taking over his eyes and making them glassy. Mary knows she about to get bombarded with information that could very well change her, and how she looks at her boys.

"Sam was out for four years, went to college."

She says nothing afraid interrupting him will break the spell.

He runs a hand under his nose, and sits back a little farther, becoming more relaxed. Mary decides she loves the look on him.

"I got out for a year, Sam took a break for a year another time. We just..." he looks up to her eyes filled with past pain, taking her breath away. The confusion in them making her heart ache.

"We just...could never get out." He sighs, "I don't now if you just got lucky, or if it was the deal...but you are the only one I know that got out. And that didn't last," he huffs a dry laugh. Thoughts turning to other, even more painful things, she waits for him.

"We just always ended up back, together in the impala hunting." He sighs again, it's a happy sound this time, and he turns a content smile on her. "No matter what, no matter what and I mean that, we always got back to each other."

She gives him that crooked smile he remembers so well, her hand glides through his hair and oh my lord, he just wants to bask in this moment. But the bunker door slams open and shut in quick succession they watch Cas descend into the room.

"Dean," he says, in his matter-of-fact way, "Have you finished "filling your mother in"?"

Dean barely refrains from rolling his eyes at the finger quotes.

He clears his throat and glances with a small, sincere smile at her. "Yeah." He says softly, "I think we just about covered everything we need to so..."

"I assume that means you told her how I saved you from hell also?"

Dean's face goes perfectly still as does Mary's. The color fades from her face and her gaze falls on Dean.

"You went to hell?"

He winces, "Yeah, I was getting to that I swe..."

He's interrupted by an arms full of mother as she gathers as much of her boy up into her arms as she can.

"Okay," he soothes, hand ghosting over the blonde curls. "Its okay, I'm here, been back a long time now, never going back I swear."

His eyes meet Cas' over her head and Dean sends him his 'I'll deal with you later' glare. Cas just shrugs with a smirk and heads off towards the kitchen.

Mary grits her teeth and squeezes her eyes shut so tight it hurts. She just wants to shut all this out and hold her son. She knows that there is so much she doesn't know, so much pain and suffering Dean's been through that she doesn't know about but dang, Hell was about all she could deal with today.

She holds him closer than ever. Feeling is heartbeat again her own chest, the warmth of his body against hers. Realizing for the first time that not only is her life a miracle so is his a thousand times over. How many times has she almost lost him and not even known it?

She sighs and a small smile graces her lips as she inhales what she's learning recognize as his smell and presses her cheek against his. Thank you God, or whatever...

He's really real.

the end.

Thank you so much for reading! Review? :)

A/N: I'm not intentionally leaving Sam out. I can't wait to tag about his injuries and him meeting his mom OMGGGG, and him learning Dean isn't dead, and that whole reunion. (It's going to be beautiful) like seriously writer's heaven. Bye for now.


	3. Part 3 Sam

Part 3.

Wood hard and cold beneath him. Clothes and skin wet and clammy leaving him victim to violent shivers. Burns on his feet flaring with repeated flaming pain, a massive headache banging like century old church bells in his head from his drug induced walk down memory lane. Eyes squeezed shut but unable to close out the aching, stinging...agonizing truth; Dean is dead.

He is alone.

He barely remembers falling asleep, propped up against the bannister of the stairs. As he awakens he's briefly aware he's not where he's meant to be. Knows this warmth and comfort isn't for him. Dean is dead, died for him and the rest of the world. He doesn't deserve this.

Slowly the numbed and forced feeling of ease and luxury fades. Sam is grateful as he comes to in the dirty, damp cellar. He'd take another hundred years in hell with Lucifer than be mind-raped by brainwashed, pant suited, asshole-bitch Toni Bevill again.

Said bitch really doesn't know anything about torture. He'll give her that, at least she knows she's an incompetent librarian. And so unimaginative. Sam can think of a million different ways to inflict enough pain to make himself talk before she can build up the courage to slice an inch long cut in his chest.

She's put him in a very incorporative mood. Especially since the first drug had inflicted the severest of emotional trauma. He's still watching tremors run through his body just thinking back to it. His worst moments played on repeat. Watching the three deaths that haunted him everyday of his life on replay had been Toni's best, most accurate move yet. Thankfully beginner's luck ran short with her.

The pictures flash before him before he can stop them. His and his brother's mother burning on the ceiling above his crib. The one person besides Dean who loved him completely unconditionally, Jess, burned the same way. The price paid for coming in the way.

And then Dean.

Why it was this one death that stuck with him he'll never know. Maybe it was because he had witnessed his brother torn to pieces before him, and then had gathered those pieces of the man he loved, worshiped, looked up to...he took those pieces of his shattered heart and life. He placed them, silent and cold, in a simple wooden casket. Had felt every grain of soil fall through his fingers as he released the first handful of dirt down to dully thud on the wood.

He buried his brother. Covered him from sight, from the light of day. Cut off all air supply, abandoned him in the cold ground. He walked away alive as the cold sun rose on his altered life. Dean didn't. He stayed silent and cold and still and lifeless; the price for every beat of Sam's heart.

He knew that feeling like the back of his hand. He was feeling it now. He was alive, this Men of Letters errand bitch was alive because of his brother. Because of yet another sacrifice made by the greatest man Sam had ever known. The soul deep ache, the feeling like someone had reached down his throat and jerked his heart into his mouth...there it was, like an old friend...like death itself.

That feeling of being utterly alone. And as Toni turns on her pointed high heel and leaves him for the night his heart is shattering all over again. Because thats what it does when Dean is gone. He remembers his beautiful brother, remembers his smile, his loyalty, his humor...Sam's heart heals in a millisecond with a sudden rush of warmth and a fond smile.

And then he remembers.

Dean is gone.

He is alone.

His heart shatters. Glass shards falling to the floor between is feet. Momentarily, he wishes he could find a piece to end it all with. There is no escaping this torture...there is no leaving Dean behind, no forgetting him. Even if Sam wanted, he'd never say no to the sweetest torture.

Dean deserved to be remembered, no matter the cost.

Sam gladly takes the torture. The real life pain Toni affords him. He needs to pay...someone needs to pay. Needs to pay for the wrong, for the evil, for the sin of Dean's life cut short. Being stolen from him, being ripped away from him, from Sam, from everyone that deserves to be saved by him...deserves even to only know him.

He'd never break. He could take pain longer than Toni had left to live. Dean would be dead for longer than that. His brother was gone for good this time. Bring the pain, bring the torture...dig in his head for the rest of his life...Dean was gone forever and there was no changing that.

Hours of agony inch by. He feels fever setting in with chills. He's getting pissed at Toni. Doesn't she know anything? She will lose him in just a week at this rate. The sun raises its head, rays sneaking into the cellar. Another day.

Another day without Dean.

The door unlocks and Sam raises his own head defiantly. Ready for punishment, ready for distraction from the pain riddling his insides. Toni is pushing someone down the stairs and his breath catches in his throat. Dean, his brother; impossible.

He'll give it to Toni. She caught him by surprise. He hadn't expected her to be this clever. Of somehow casting a spell to recreate his brother. He's tight lipped, angry and desperate to get his hands on the woman who would dare impersonate his dead and gone brother as she chains him up, pours herself a cup of tea and selects formidable looking brass knuckles.

He's not expecting her to go through with it. After all you can't hit something that's not really there. And then she does it. She hits it. And her blow lands on something. The sickening sound of metal colliding with flesh and bone and the very real sounding grunts of pain escaping the look-a-like's gritted teeth make Sam's heart freeze.

By habit his mind is screaming at him to stop the mistreatment of his brother. But everything else in him is telling him it's not real, it can't be. Toni grows weary of Dean's face and takes a step back.

The thing spits blood on the floor, so like his brother.

"No, no, just came out for a cup of tea and a beating." The snarky retort and the accompanying smirk halts Sam's entire world.

Oh god, it's like a stab in the gut! So like his brother. Just like his brother, in fact. His heart is crying out to the man beside him. His head is telling him no, it can't be, it's impossible. But Dean has done the impossible before. Dean has conquered all odds in order to make it back to his side in the past. It's possible isn't it?

"It is, it is, it is!" His heart is calling to him, pleading with him.

"Dean?"

It comes out more of a plea, a prayer...a hopeful whisper than a question. His soul is literally gasping at the thought that it's mate is still alive, is here beside it. It's like he's surfing a wave so high, so, so high...and he's waiting at the crest, will he coast down smoothly? Or is he going to be swept away in its angry, unpredictable currents?

"Hey." Is the hushed answer.

Their souls crash together in a terrifying, beautiful, electric moment when their eyes meet finally...for the first time since Sam said goodbye, since he lied and said it was alright. The wave rushes towards shore gracefully. Sam's heart is put back together and shattered with relief all at once.

He's really real.

...

Honestly, this is the end now!

If you enjoyed this plz review!? :) ;)


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